At Aqua Vita Farms in Sherrill, fish provide nutrients for plants and plants help purify water for fish

Mark Doherty is growing more than lettuce in a warehouse at the former Oneida Ltd. factory, in Sherrill.

Since August, the entrepreneur has tended to an indoor farming operation designed to grow seafood and produce for wholesale distribution.

But the harvest at Aqua Vita Farms includes lessons about sustainable growing practices and urban redevelopment.

The practice is called aquaponics — a blend of aquaculture, or fish farming, and hydroponics, growing plants without soil.

In Sherrill, the process starts with four 5,000-gallon fish tanks filled with blue gill.

Filters remove solid wastes from the tank water, converting it to plant food. Gravity then delivers the water to 100-foot long plant beds, where lettuce seedlings float on rafts. Pumps return the water to the tanks after it has been naturally filtered by the plants, and the process starts again.

The closed-loop system creates 80 percent less waste than traditional farming, Doherty said.

And unlike the kind of hydroponics that uses water-soluble fertilizers to feed the plants, the fish at the Aqua Vita operation provide the nutrient load for the plants.

“When my product gets to restaurants, it is 1 or 2 days old,” he said. “Produce from California is well over a week old when it reaches the table. There’s a big difference in freshness.”

Doherty is experimenting with other aquaponic systems, including breeding tilapia and growing other fruiting crops.

“We’re learning what grows well here as we go,” he said.

Doherty, a Binghamton native, graduated from Paul Smith’s College and spent 15 years in the restaurant industry, where he saw firsthand the growth of the local foods movement.

“I watched as people started asking what they were eating, where it was from,” he said.

When he returned to the SUNY Institute of Technology, in Utica, to pursue a master’s degree, he researched similar aquaponic projects at Morrisville State College and the State University College at Cobleskill.

The idea to reuse warehouse space came to him as he was driving through downtown Utica.

“It was empty building after empty building,” he said.

Aqua Vita’s 13,000-square-foot location was ideal for several reasons, he said. Between target markets — Syracuse and Utica — and near the New York State Thruway and Route 5, the site allows Doherty to take advantage of existing shipping routes, bringing down fuel costs. The site purchases power as a cooperative, another cost saver.

Doherty made other green choices, such as using energy-efficient lights above his crops, instead of the typical bulbs used in greenhouses. Renovations lowered the ceilings and insulated the exterior walls to bring down heating costs.

“Whether you’re using lights, heating a greenhouse or putting diesel fuel in a combine, farming is an energy intense operation, no matter how you do it,” he said.

“Here, we did everything we could to make the operation more efficient,” he said.

It’s an idea he thinks could work for other abandoned buildings across Central New York.

“No one can afford to tear down all the old buildings in Syracuse and Utica,” he said. “But this is an efficient use of existing space.

“It’s something that has to be done,” he continued. “People have to invest in these types of solutions.”

He said consumers can drive the move toward more sustainable practices.

“If what they want is local and sustainably grown, they need to say that,” Doherty said. “If a restaurant hears that enough times, they’re going to bring it in.”